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Theodicies As Failures of Recognition

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Theodicies As Failures of Recognition religions Article Theodicies as Failures of Recognition Sari Kivistö 1 and Sami Pihlström 2,* 1 Faculty of Communication Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere 33014, Finland; sari.kivisto@uta.fi 2 Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki 00014, Finland * Correspondence: sami.pihlstrom@helsinki.fi; Tel.: +358-40-5015535 Received: 10 October 2017; Accepted: 28 October 2017; Published: 1 November 2017 Abstract: This paper examines the ethical failure of theodicies by integrating the perspectives of philosophical argumentation and literary reading and analysis. The paper consists of two main parts. In the first part, we propose an ethical critique of metaphysical realism by analyzing its inability to recognize the perspectival plurality and diversity of suffering. As theodicies seek to explain how an omnipotent, omniscient, and absolutely benevolent God could allow the world to contain evil and suffering, it can be argued that metaphysical realism—i.e., the thesis that the world possesses its own fundamental structure independently of human perspectives of conceptualization and inquiry— is a problematic starting point of theodicism. We examine the failure of recognition of others’ suffering inherent in theodicies as a failure based on the search for an overall reductive and objectifying picture (a “God’s-Eye View”) that is constitutive of metaphysical realism. The second part of the paper shows why we should include insights from imaginative literature in our attempts to understand the recognition failures of theodicies. Emphasizing the literary, philosophical, and theological relevance of various modern rewritings of the Book of Job, which has been a crucially important sub-text for many later literary works in which the protagonists render a particular kind of human experience—unmerited suffering—we turn more closely to some literary examples, such as Joseph Roth’s novels Hiob and Die Rebellion. The tensions that are created around the moral controversy of the experiences of injustice and suffering and the human and religious reasoning and justification of violence are examined. The ambiguous ending of Hiob that adds an apparently hopeful and almost fairytale-like redemption to the story plays a crucial role in the interpretation provided in the paper. By analyzing some literary examples and their relation to the literary Job tradition, the recognition-failures of theodicist attempts to provide meaning into suffering—attempts based on metaphysical realism, as argued in the first part of the paper—are highlighted. Finally, we also critically consider the charge that theodicism could only be theoretically formulated and argue that a sharp distinction between theory and practice in this area is itself an act of non-recognition, or a failure to recognize suffering. Keywords: suffering; theodicy; theodicism; antitheodicy; antitheodicism; realism; metaphysical realism; recognition; acknowledgment; literature; the Book of Job; Roth, Joseph 1. Introduction Theodicies, seeking to justify “the ways of God to man,” attempt to view human suffering from an overall metaphysical and/or theological perspective. From such a perspective, all apparently unnecessary and meaningless evil and suffering there seems to be in the world we live in is rendered in some sense “meaningful” or at least necessary for the overall goodness of the harmonious world system. While theodicies have been proposed by both classical and contemporary thinkers throughout the history of theistic thought (and there are, arguably, also secular theodicies available in the discussion), there is a growing tradition of moral criticism of theodicies drawing attention to their arguably striking insensitivity to human suffering (see, e.g., Betenson 2016). This tradition deserves further philosophical Religions 2017, 8, 242; doi:10.3390/rel8110242 www.mdpi.com/journal/religions Religions 2017, 8, 242 2 of 18 scrutiny, but it also needs to be carefully examined what the peculiar insensitivity typical of theodicies actually consists of. Therefore, a key aim of this paper is to offer an ethical critique of metaphysical realism by analyzing its inability to recognize the perspectival plurality and diversity of suffering, interpreting the failure of recognition of others’ suffering inherent in theodicies as a failure based on the search for an overall reductive and objectifying picture (a “God’s-Eye View”) arguably constitutive of metaphysical realism. In addition to engaging theodicies and their metaphysically realist background assumptions by philosophical argument and criticism, we will show why it is vital to include insights from imaginative literature in serious attempts to understand the recognition failures of theodicies. Emphasizing the literary, philosophical, and theological relevance of various modern rewritings of the Book of Job, a crucially important sub-text for many later literary works addressing unmerited suffering, our paper more closely analyzes some literary examples, such as Joseph Roth’s novels Hiob and Die Rebellion that take a critical stand on any overarching perspective on individual suffering. Arguing that theodicism typically (though not strictly speaking logically) presupposes metaphysical realism, as both assume the availability of a “God’s-Eye View” theory of why there is evil and suffering (i.e., God’s reasons for allowing the world to contain apparently meaningless and unnecessary evil and suffering on the massive scale familiar to us on a daily basis), we will not only argue against theodicism by criticizing its background assumptions but also (indirectly) against metaphysical realism itself by providing reasons for rejecting its (typical) consequence, theodicism. Metaphysical realism and theodicism will then ultimately collapse hand in hand. However, we should also to observe that this collapse does not lead to a rejection of realism tout court. Rather, antitheodicism—the view that abandons the entire project of theodicy, as will be explained in more detail below—needs a moderately realist understanding of humanly speaking objective reality and truth, but it is precisely the human dimension of this need that is not adequately available within metaphysical realism. Let us start with some conceptual preliminaries made explicit in some of our earlier work, especially Kantian Antitheodicy (Kivistö and Pihlström 2016). We propose to define theodicy and theodicism simply with reference to the attempt to provide a justification for apparently senseless (meaningless, absurd) suffering. Generally, we may say that theodicies seek a justification, legitimation, and/or excusing of an omnipotent, omniscient and absolutely benevolent God’s allowing the world (His creation) to contain evil and for allowing humans and other sentient beings to suffer. Classical formulations of theodicies can be found, for example, in Augustine’s and his numerous followers’ appeals to God’s having created human beings with freed will as the reason why there is evil, and in G.W. Leibniz’s position, formulated in his famous Théodicée (1710), according to which God could not have created any better world than the one that he, as omnipotent and absolutely good, did create; according to this Leibnizian theodicy, we live in “the best possible world,” and while there is indeed some evil there, it is necessary for the overall good. Leibnizian theodicies are good examples of purely metaphysical attempts to explain the place of evil within the absolute divine harmony of the world; it does not aim at a moral justification of God’s allowing suffering but at a metaphysical excuse explaining why even the best possible world may include some evil—or even quite a bit. More recent examples of theodicies include attempts to revive “free will theodicies” and “soul-making theodicies” by major philosophers of religion such as Richard Swinburne and John Hick. Classical atheist arguments based on the problem of evil and suffering have, in turn, been presented by philosophers like David Hume and J.L. Mackie, while several contemporary thinkers have proposed “defenses” intended as more moderate than theodicies proper, suggesting that there is a possible world in which God has good reasons to create and maintain a world in which humans and other sentient beings suffer horribly, without necessarily claiming that possible world to be actual, or claiming that we would be able to know God’s actual reasons (cf., e.g., Van Inwagen 2006). Now, by “theodicism,” we may refer to all those attempts to deal with the problem of evil and suffering that regard theodicy as a desideratum of an acceptable theistic position, irrespective of Religions 2017, 8, 242 3 of 18 whether they end up defending theism or rejecting it. The theodicist can, then, very well be an atheist, insofar as they conclude that God does not exist (or probably does not exist, or that there is no justification for the belief that God exists) precisely because the theodicist desideratum cannot be fulfilled. Also those who propose a mere “defense”—instead of a theodicy proper—can be regarded as theodicists in the sense that they also seek to defend God and account for God’s justice by arguing that, for all we know, God could have ethically acceptable reasons to allow the world to contain evil and suffering, even the kind of truly horrible evil and suffering familiar to anyone with adequate moral sensitivities in the world we live in. By “antitheodicism,” in contrast, we may mean the rejection of any such, or indeed any, theodicies, or better, of
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